Verizon dropped 10K 911 calls during January blizzard says FCC

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Verizon likes to bill itself as having the best network in the US (and that’s generally accepted to be true), but it looks like even they have problems when times get tough. According to a Bloomberg report, the FCC has posted a letter to Verizon Wireless saying that the carrier dropped as many as 10,000 calls to 911 during the January 26th blizzard in the Washington, DC area.

That would be a serious enough problem on its own, but the FCC is concerned that this could be happening during other emergencies across the country and affecting many more of Verizon’s 90+ million subscribers.

The Federal Communications Commission has sent a letter to Verizon asking them to investigate the incident and presumedly get to the bottom on the issue. The FCC described the number of dropped calls during the blizzard “truly alarming” and for their part Verizon says they are investigating but part of the problem was due to the high volume of calls over a short period of time. They are working with the counties involved to make sure it doesn’t happen again.